A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
May 07, '09 07:30:01AM • Contributed by: kquinn

I'm sure everyone runs into this from time to time, but when composing emails in Mail, it's common to have to paste text into the message from a variety of sources, and with a variety of formatting. I know it's possible to paste with matching style, which will automatically format the text to your message, but this means either selecting from the Edit menu or using a four-key shortcut (in Leopard, that is).

Instead, I prefer to ignore the formatting as I go, and just paste text as I need it. Then, when I've finished, I just press Command-Shift-T, which is the shortcut for Format » Make Plain Text. All of the text formatting is then stripped when the message is converted to plain text.

Hint Options

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail | 16 comments | Create New Account

Click here to return to the 'A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail' hint

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
Authored by: auco on May 07, '09 08:03:00AM

Sounds easier to setup Mail to send plain text messages only (in Mail's Prefs)... which is btw also a nice thing to do for people using IMAP accounts, because the mails are also about only a 10th of the size =)

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
Authored by: osxpounder on May 07, '09 09:04:59AM

Addition to the tip: you can do CMD-SHIFT-t once again, immediately after you did it. That switches the message format back to Rich Text again.

I prefer to send & receive plain text emails. I set my Mail client to send plain text by default.

I prefer to view email in MY choice of font and size. For some reason I can't figure out right now, Mail doesn't let me use the option under View>Message>Plain Text Alternative. It remains greyed out. I haven't got time to figure that out right now.

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
Authored by: osxpounder on May 07, '09 04:03:11PM

Good to know about. Thanks!

That reminds me that, when it comes to pasting, I think a clipboard/pasteboard with memory is AWESOME. I've used a few utils that give me a clipboard that remembers recent copies, including Butler. I like Butler for that.

TextExpander offers the option to strip formatting from the shortcuts you create, per shortcut, I think.

You have to do a few extra clicks to copy the filename instead of the file: once the file is selected click again on the filename or press Return--i.e. start editing the filename. Then Select all if you want to include the extension, and finally Copy. A paste will now paste the filename instead of the file.

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
Authored by: ppp on May 07, '09 09:27:47AM

You can also select specific formatted text, and type Command-Option-V to replace the formatting with the default formatting. Unless of course you've used Command-Option-C to copy the formatting from some other section previously.

Has anyone figured out how to get the double-spacing that shows up sometimes to go away?

A quick way to strip all formatting from pasted text in Mail
Authored by: delux on May 07, '09 11:54:27AM

The post solution "expands" any hyperlinks you've created in the mail message making the message unreadable. This one-line AppleScript will clear the formatting of the clipboard before you paste it in:

set the clipboard to «class ktxt» of ((the clipboard as string) as record)

Save it as an application and click it, map it to a key, or what you like, just before you paste in the questionably formatted text.